This was Clementina's first drop of bitterness in her cup of success. She questioned her mother closely as to how he looked, and what he said. It did not please her that, instead of bemoaning his own loss, he should be feeling a contempt for her duplicity--that he should use her to cure his passion, when she meant to wound him still deeper. She felt at moments as if she could give up for Philip Lee the wealth and position she had so hardly won, only she knew him well enough to understand that henceforward she could not easily deceive him again. It was pleasant to return to New York this fall; the news of the engagement opened everyone's heart and home. Congratulations came from every quarter; even Uncle Gray praised the girl who had done so well for herself, and signified his approval by a handsome check. The course of this love ran smooth enough, and one fine morning in October, Grace Church saw a splendid wedding. Henceforward Clementina Kurston was a woman to be courted instead of patronized, and many a woman who had spoken lightly of her beauty and qualities, was made to acknowledge with an envious pang that she had distanced them. This was her first reward, and she did not stint herself in extorting it. To tell the truth, Clementina had many a bitter score of this kind to pay off; for, as she said in extenuation, it was impossible for her to allow herself to be in debt to her self-respect. Well, the wedding was over. She had abundantly gratified her taste for splendor; she had smiled on those on whom she willed to smile; she had treated herself extravagantly to the dangerous pleasure of social revenge; she was now anxious to go and take possession of her home, which had the reputation of being one of the oldest and handsomest in the country. Mr. Kurston, hitherto, had been intoxicated with love, and not a little flattered by the brilliant position which his wife had at once claimed. Now that she was his wife, it amused him to see her order and patronize and dispense with all that royal prerogative which belongs to beauty, supported by wealth and position. Into his great happiness he had suffered no doubt, no fear of the future, to come; but, as the day approached for their departure for Kurston Chace, he grew singularly restless and uneasy. For, much as he loved and obeyed the woman whom he called "wife," there was another woman at Kurston whom he called "daughter," that he loved quite as dearly, in a different way. In fact, of his daughter, Athel Kurston, he stood just a little bit in fear, and she had ruled the household at the Chace for many years as absolute mistress. No one knew anything of her mother; he had brought her to her present home when only five years old, after a long stay on the Continent. A strange woman, wearing the dress of a Sclavonic peasant, came with the child as nurse; but she had never learnt to speak English, and had now been many years dead.